


Bonding

by Seoven



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21657751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seoven/pseuds/Seoven
Summary: Just, Mando and Baby Yoda. Fluff, entirely, nothing even remotely approaching plot.
Comments: 32
Kudos: 263





	1. 1

The climate on Sorgan is temperate, at least this time of year. The days are warm, the nights mild. A dramatic change from Arvala 7 with its scorching, dry days and nights that barely remained above freezing, seeming all the colder for the difference.

They hadn't been on Sorgan long enough for him to forget how unpleasant that level of sustained heat could be, or how nice it was to be able to fall asleep without his teeth clattering inside his helmet. It was, he felt, a much more reasonable climate.

He sleeps with the shutters on the windows open, the cloth hung to provide a semblance of privacy catching in the mild breeze. He has spread some blankets on the floor in the far corner of the room.

Omera seems keen to set something more permanent up for him to sleep on, but he doesn't intend to stay. Letting her put a bed in here, or to move into a hut and out of the barn implies things he wants to avoid.

The Child will stay, that much was clear very quickly. It is about as safe as anywhere can be, and the people are good. Cara Dune, he expects, will probably stay as well, though she might come and go (and perhaps go more than stay). It also helps to know that Dune will be around, incase the raiders return.

He _wants_ to stay. He wants to believe he would be happy here, and maybe he would. Maybe he'd take off his helmet and fall into something with Omera and they would raise Winta and the kid together. Maybe.

Maybe he would take his helmet off and find out that nothing here was for him, that all he had had was the Way. Best to leave, best to leave sooner rather than later.

He sleeps.

Wakes in the night, mouth dry, sweating in the heat. For a moment he wonders if he is back on Arvala 7, laid in the sand beneath an unforgiving sun.

The cool breeze stirs the curtains, brings the smell of the forest into the barn at the same time he realises the heat is localised to a small ball between his left arm and his ribs.

He lifts the blanket and the child shifts in sleep, ears twitching. No wonder the little womp rat didn't seem to feel the cold on Arvala 7, the heat the kid was throwing out. The Mandalorian watches the child murmur in his sleep.

No use wondering how or why the kid got out of the crib Omera had loaned them. The little brat had a way of not staying where he was supposed to.

With a sigh, he shifts and picks up the child with as little disturbance as possible, and returns him to the crib.

His shirt is damp with sweat beneath the armour, he forgoes the blankets.

Sleeps.

And wakes again, on his side and a little ball of fire resting against his kidney.

He sighs, glances to the window, the sky is starting to lighten.

He rolls onto his stomach, turns his head to look at the sleeping child who opens heavy eyes and blinks at him very, very slowly, then nudges forward, into his vambrace, then looks at the steel.

"Yeah, alright." The Mandalorian props himself up on one arm and removes his vambraces, his chest plate, his pauldrons.

He lies down again, and the child sleep staggers over his arm and curls up, asleep again in seconds.

The Mandalorian is thinking on the perimeter sensors he and Dune had spent the last few days setting up, counting them in his head to excuse his relaxing enough to remove most of his armour, and the sky is a lightening blue when he falls asleep.

He doesn't recognise the look on Omeras face, when he asks if she would take the crib, if the child could start sleeping in her hut. She says yes, because she has already promised to care for the child when he leaves.

But the look on her face... it isn't disappointment, he isn't even sure it is anything negative. Something wistful, or longing in the eyes.

He moves the crib while she watches. Winta has taken the child wherever it is they go. Chasing frogs, probably, for the fun of it for Winta, and for eating for the childs'. The other children seem to find it at turns hilarious and revolting. 

When the crib is placed, he looks to Omera and she nods, smiles. It's a sad smile. The look on her face, it had been something like old, almost forgotten sorrow. 

He wakes that night with eyes upon him. He blinks in the dark and looks at the door. A tiny shadow, the edge of a pointy ear.

He sits up and the shadow moves, approaches and stares at him, a look of mild betrayal in huge eyes. It doesn't hurt his heart any less for the mildness of it. Betrayal is in truth, probably too harsh a word for the look. But still, still.

"Come on then." His tone is gentle, and he keeps any exasperation out of it. Asks himself how surprised he really is, as he removed all armour besides the helmet before turning in.

He lies down, shifts the blanket so he isn't covered by it. The child climbs under, presses to his chest, churring happiness and is asleep before he can arrange the blanket around them both.

It is not long before a tall shadow, black in the moonlight slinks in silence to the door, stands where the child had stood.

The Mandalorian raised a hand slowly to acknowledge her presence, then pointed to the curled up ball of fire asleep against him. Omera nods, lifts a hand in a shadow of a wave and creeps back into the dark.

He has to leave. He thinks it as he stares at the sleeping child. _I have to_ _leave._ Sooner, rather than later. He is getting too comfortable here, and the child too comfortable with him. He sleeps.


	2. 2

As the ship hums peacefully around him, he finds he misses the sounds of the village on Sorgan, the wildlife, the low murmur of conversation, the occasional high pitched shriek of laughter from the children playing. (And hadn't that taken some getting used to, the screaming. The first three times he had dropped what he had been doing and gone running toward was, he was sure, life threatening danger. The first time, it had been the child. Eating a frog. The other children shrieking with glee and disgust. And on it went. The Mandalorian children played, of course, but their play was more subdued, hushed giggles and whispers in the dark. It makes something in his chest ache now, in a way it didn't before, to think of that.) Still, the noise of his ship is a familiar one. Home, in a way the village on Sorgan wasn't. Couldn't ever have been.

He is rearranging his kit- their departure had been swift, and he had stored things with haste in mind, storing them safely, rather than seeing things to their proper place. He is examining the weapons rack, the doors of the locker open wide, when he feels eyes upon him. He glances to one of the doors of the locker, a flat steel, polished to shine, and in the reflection there is the child, peering at him from around the doorway into the cargo hold.

He turns, slowly, toward the door and the child. By the time he has turned, the child has shuffled into the cover of the doorway and out of sight. It has the air of a game, and he recalls watching Winta and Omera engage in something similar- Winta, peeking through the window, hiding when her mother turned. It had seemed to go on until some pre-determined stage, wherein Omera had spun at speed and, yelling, lunged toward the window while Winta, screeching gaily had run into the sunlight. So, he turns back to the weapon rack, stands for a moment at a loss (is it, a game?) and in the reflection, the child leans out again, ears perked up higher than he would have thought possible. He holds still a moment longer before, with an air of great deliberation, turning back to the cargo door.

While the child has gone back to cover, this time he has not shuffled far enough to the side, and the tip of one pointy ear pokes out. He swallows a snort. Then it _is_ a game.

He turns back to the locker, and closes the doors, slowly. He tries to affect the blithe unawareness Omera had used, while being stalked by her daughter, as he turns toward the cargo bay. He walks through the doors, as if he is focused entirely on the remaining package of flash frozen food. Out of the corner of his eye, he spies the child between crates break for the door. He credits the kid that, at least. The kid had used the shadows, until his play enemy had his back turned and had moved quietly enough toward the doorway.

He immediately takes any and all credit he had given the child back, because the kid goes chortling with glee through the doorway. For a creature that seems capable of getting everywhere he shouldn't, the kid isn't great at stealth. If they're going to stay together then... _If they're going to stay together_. He curses, mildly, under his breath as he looks at the crate of supplies.

They're not. He can't keep the kid. He _can't_. He doesn't even know what to do with a kid- a _human_ kid. What the fragging hell he'd do with- with- whatever the child is.

He turns, and walks out of the cargo bay, hesitates. The child is nowhere to be seen.

"Hey." He frowns- opens the weapons locker, no kid. He lifts a cargo net, but no kid. There aren't any places to hide here, even if you're only one foot high and slow moving. His eyes pass over the vac-tube as he scans the room. Nothing, nothing but the ladder and- the vac-tube. But he wouldn't- he wouldn't _fit-_ would- even if he did, the kid would _know_ surely- he wouldn't- he lunges toward the vac-tube, horror rising. As he does, there is movement from above, the hatch above the ladder.

He stops short, glances up the ladder. There, eyes and ears are all that are visible. "Hey." He breathes it out in a sigh, relief flooding where adrenaline had coursed, and the kid trills with good humour, more of the kids' head appears. All fun and games, giving this poor old bastard a heart attack, apparently. The eyes narrow a little, ears flexing as if to say- "Yeah, alright, you got me." He reaches a hand for a rung of the ladder and pauses, looks back up to the kid who has shifted, and now all he can see are tiny clawed toes. "How'd you get up there?"

He thinks on the mudhorn, suspended in the air. The toes disappear. He thinks on the mudhorn, the child, one hand reaching out. He thinks on myths, legends. Jedi. Stories. Worse than stories, worse than legends, things you made up to tell your kid when they couldn't sleep at night, because the enemy was at the gates and no one (but maybe the Jedi) were coming.

Then the lights go out, and the little womp rat shrieks with glee. "Hey!" He thinks on, suddenly, all of those brightly coloured, lit up buttons up there the little brat could be pressing and launches himself up the ladder.

**Author's Note:**

> Any constructive criticism welcomed. I haven't written anything for about 10 years, so. 
> 
> Unbeta'd, I didn't even reread it if I'm honest. Posted before I could think better of it. 
> 
> Is there a community or anything where we can post prompts for other people?


End file.
